I Was Told It Would Get Easier(41)

EMILY


My grandfather is pretty cool. He was standing outside the restaurant, hands behind his back, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, looking exactly the same as he always has. Maybe once you get really old you stop aging, if you know what I mean.

Grandpa and I have an excellent relationship, despite his bizarre attachment to Facebook. I think he’s stoked to have mastered social media, and I don’t have the heart to tell him Facebook is for old people. Plus, he is an old people, so, you know . . .

I ran over and gave him a hug. He smelled of pipe tobacco, probably on account of the pipe he smokes, and even though I’ve told him a million times about mouth cancer (I even sent photos), I kind of like the smell. No one else I know smells like that. Probably because they’re all dead.

“You’re still smoking?” I asked accusingly.

“Sweet Emily,” he replied, “I am seventy-nine years old. I smoke a pipe once a day, and don’t inhale. The tobacco scares away the germs. I’m fit as a flea.”

“You saw the pictures! Your teeth will fall out!”

Grandpa leaned closer. “Sweetheart, I take my teeth out every night, they’re almost certainly cleaner than yours.”

Then he straightened up as my mom came over, and beamed at her. Mom claims Grandpa likes Aunt Lizzy better than her, but it’s not true. Aunt Lizzy is a lot sweeter than Mom, possibly because she’s not as smart (sorry, truth) and she’s very easy to like. Mom takes more work.

“Dad,” she said, and hugged him. I’m surprised, but she holds it a little longer than usual. Maybe the scene in the bar upset her more than she let on. Adults are such an enigma.



* * *



? ? ?

I spent a fat three minutes outside Harrisons, taking pictures, because that place is a half-timber Disney dream of Olde England. They even have a red mailbox, which England doesn’t even have anymore! We used to spend a month every summer with my grandparents; they had a house in Lost River, in the Shenandoah Valley, with acres of woods and grass and streams and actual deer and things like that. But we’d fly in and out of DC, so we started and ended the trip at Harrisons. Not this one, the one in DC, obviously. When I was a kid, I thought it was genuinely magical, and even now I’m stoked, no lie. Mom likes it, too, even though she totally misses the point of a steakhouse and gets the pork chop. She says she never makes them herself, which I get, but still. It’s got steak in the name.

It was only after we sat down and ordered—I always get the same thing, steak, rare, creamed spinach, french fries—that I realized Grandpa was about to make a speech. Shoot me now. No, really, take me outside, blindfold me, let me say something memorable, then shoot me.

Grandpa was a lawyer, like my mom, but I think he spent more time in court or something, because he loves to give a speech, and it’s impossible to interrupt him. I guess years of rolling right on over the objections of opposing counsel (not sleeping through Law & Order, that show is a classic) gave him plenty of practice.

“So, Emily,” he began, and I knew right away I might as well rest my elbows on the table and get comfortable. “You’re here to look at colleges, correct?”

“Correct,” I replied, and glanced over at Mom. She was looking at Grandpa with one of those little lines between her eyebrows. She was wondering where he was going. She’s always slightly on edge around Grandpa, I’ve noticed, even though he’s completely harmless.

Right then he had his serious voice on. “I want to give you some advice.”

As this was not a shocking development, I nodded.

“College is a wonderful opportunity,” he said. “A time to really dig deeply into a subject that interests you, and hopefully discover the calling in your work we all really need. For me, and for your mother, it was the law. I have long suspected that law isn’t something that interests you, am I right?”

I squirmed a bit. How to tell the truth without being savage?

“Not really, Grandpa. I don’t think I’m smart enough, for one thing. I’m a pretty solid B student.” Apart from those Cs, of course, but we don’t need to get into specifics.

“But you can get your undergraduate degree in anything. You could study art history or something pointless like that.”

I frowned at him, ignoring the diss to, you know, the entire creative output of humankind. “Well, not really. Most lawyers study political science or criminal justice or psychology as undergrads.”

He frowned back, then asked my mom, “Is that true?”

She nodded and shifted in her chair. “It’s not like it used to be. It’s not even like it was for me. These days getting into college and law school is like a blood sport. It’s insane.”

She sounded tired and irritated, and gazed around as if hoping the bill would miraculously appear before the actual meal.

He nodded thoughtfully. “Well, I know the deans at several excellent schools. I’m sure I could put in a good word.”

I had to cut this off. “But, Grandpa, I don’t want to be a lawyer. It’s not my jam, all that studying and memorizing.”

“What, then?” The waiter came and refilled Grandpa’s wineglass. Grandpa raised it at me. “Where are you going to triumph?”

Crap. How about nowhere?